"Waal, that is the way they went, sartain sure," protested the blacksmith. "I tracked 'em, the ground bein' moist, kase I wanted ter view the marks o' their horses' hoofs. They hev got some powerful triflin' blacksmiths in the army—farriers, they call 'em. I los' the trail amongst the rocks an' ledges down todes the cave—though it's more like one o' them tunnels we-uns used ter go through in the railroads in the army, but this one was never made with hands; jes' hollowed out by Sinking Creek. So I got Jube thar ter crope through, an' view ef thar war any hoofmarks on t'other side whar the cave opens out in Greenbrier Cove."
"An' a body would think fur sure ez the armies o' hell had been spewed out'n that black hole," said a lean man whom the glance of the blacksmith had indicated as Jube, and who spoke in the intervals of a racking cough that seemed as if it might dislocate his bones in its violence. "Hoofmarks hyar—hoofmarks thar—as if they didn't rightly know which way ter go in the marshy ground 'bout Sinking Creek. But at last they 'peared ter git tergether, an' off they tracked ter the west——" A paroxysm of coughs intervened, and the attention of the group failed to follow the words that they interspersed.
"They tuk a short cut through the Cove—they warn't in it a haffen hour," stipulated the prudent miller. "They came an' went like a flash. Nobody seen 'em 'cept the Brusies, kase they went by thar house—an' ef they hed hed a guide, old Randal Brusie would hev named it."
"Ackert 'lows he'll hang the guide ef he ketches him," said the blacksmith, in a tone of awe. "Leastwise that's the word that's 'goin'."
Poor Ethelinda! The clutch of cold horror about her heart seemed to stop its pulsations for a moment. She saw the still mountains whirl about the horizon as if in some weird bewitchment. Her nerveless hands loosened their clasp upon the sley and it fell to the ground, clattering on the protruding roots of the trees. The sound attracted the miller's attention. He fixed his eyes warily upon her, a sudden thought looking out from their network of wrinkles.
"You didn't see no guide whenst they slipped past you-uns' house, did ye?"
Poor, unwilling casuist! She had an instinct for the truth in its purest sense, the innate impulse toward the verities unspoiled by the taint of sophistication. Perhaps in the restricted conditions of her life she had never before had adequate temptation to a subterfuge. Even now, consciously reddening, her eyes drooping before the combined gaze of her little world, she had an inward protest of the literal exactness of her phrase. "Naw sir—I never seen thar guide."
"Thar now, what did I tell you!" the miller exclaimed, triumphantly.
The blacksmith seemed convinced. "Mought hev hed a map," he speculated. "Them fellers in the army do hev maps. I f'und that out whenst I war in the service."
The group listened respectfully. The blacksmith's practical knowledge of the art of war had given him the prestige of a military authority. Doubtless some of the acquiescent wights entertained a vague wonder how the army contrived to fare onward bereft of his advice. And, indeed, despite his maimed estate, his heart was the stoutest that thrilled to the iteration of the trumpet. Nearer now it was, and once more echoing down the sunset glen.